The
full title of Tyler Perry’s new film is “Tyler Perry’s Temptation:
Confessions of a Marriage Counselor” which is a big handle for what
would make a good TV movie with about 15 minutes cut from this fairly
slow moving film. I am a big fan of Tyler Perry (except for his Madea
character) and I keep hoping his films will ‘crossover’ to an additional
crowd to his usual fan base. Though it was a little larger audience
today Allen and I were the only white faces in the audience.

The
screenplay, based on his stage play, and directed by Perry, this film
is all cliches. An amatuer director, when showing New Orleans, would
feature someone singing “When The Saints Come Marching In” and a couple
eating beignets at the Cafe Du Monde in the French Quarter or having
them walk down Bourbon Street sipping Hurricanes. Perry, far from an
amatuer, does just that as in the Washington D.C. scenes there are ALL
the monuments and buildings an audience will be familiar with.

Regarding
the actors, and including a couple in that list seems offense to
include as actors, I was familiar with Renee Taylor, who gets the wise
crack lines, Vanessa Williams, whose reason for her accent distracts
from her performance and doesn’t pay off when the reason is given and
 Brandy Norwood who gives a good performance. Ella Joyce is a familiar
face and most of her background is in theatre.

Jurnee
Smollett-Bell, Lance Gross and Robbie Jones, all mainly from TV sitcoms
and series, were new to me. One of the fun things in seeing Tyler Perry
films are the point at which the male leads take off their shirts and
the reactions from the audience. In Gross and Jones he picked the right
guys for those scenes and though given cliche rolls they handle them
well. The film revolves around Smollett-Bell who though not giving an
embarrassing performance really needs more experience to tackle rolls
like this.

I
may be the only person who is seeing Kim Kardashian for the first time
except in print and, no disrespect intended, like many others I am
shaking my head as to how she has come to the point in ‘fame’ that she
has reached.

This
is not as good a film as his “Why Did I Get Married?” or “Why Did I Get
Married Too?”. The biggest disappointment is you would have had to
never seen a movie in this genre if you didn’t know where it is heading
as soon as you meet the three leads. It wouldn’t be a Perry movie
without some sermonizing and he brings the church, the bible, AIDS and
HIV+ into the script adding to the already lengthy, at 111 minutes, of
the slow moving story.

By the way if you want to see why movies are so expensive to make just sit, and read, through the end credits!